Friends are Friends?

I'm going to be an ear model one day. If I can't become a writer first. She laughed and showed us her perfectly mounted ears. Look at the lobes, the roundness, the essence it gives off. Don't you think they're simply just perfect? We laughed.

For a girl who's in love with a movie star and who writes him on his birthday, during the holidays, and who traveled hundreds of miles to be close to him, only to have him come here, close to her instead, she was quite the epitome of honesty and goodness.

I met her during our freshman year in college. Two city girls in a small Iowan town. What the hell were we thinking. We laughed and cried. We traveled and met in New York City. We were complete opposites, and yet, we complemented each other.

One evening, eyes strained from reading too many texts, fingers sore from too much typing, and trying to put off writing our senior theses, we discovered we had the same crush. Mark was his name. Dimpled Mark, is what the girls whispered amongst themselves. His perfectly combed brown mane of hair. His dark cocoa eyes. His fair skin. We giggled. He always offered to help me with my spelling, I injected. And once, he even offered me his chocolate milk in exchange for my skim milk. I sighed. She sighed. How did we miss each other? I left the school the year I entered 4th grade. You came in as I left. She replied.

We spent our last year flirting with the Thai exchange student. Each night we'd offer him a portion of our dinner we had just prepared. And each night, he'd politely decline. And sit with us. We'd watch the Bachelorette and American Idol. While I spent my first year mourning the loss of Grandmother, she spent her last year mourning the loss of her Grandmother. She always notices the hot guys walking by. Her eyes skimming and mentally grading him on her invisible score sheet. She admires the physique of a male's body, and his appreciation of fashion. And though she frequently complains about the constant stream of male who lay in waste at her feet, she adores the attention, the love they pour into an empty relationship, the drama that ensues.

The married ones are the worse, she states. She sighs. Especially if their wives come to talk to me. Another sigh. Avoid married men, she warns. I try to avoid them, but alas, they just keep coming despite the professionalism of our relationships. I sympathize, but cannot quite empathize. The boy sent me this. She shows me a drawing of Le Petit Prince, the Rose, and the Snake. He says I'm like the Rose. She laughs. I laugh. You've ruined the book for me, I tell her. And it's one of my favorites. She smiles. I know, she responds innocently. You gave me a copy of the book, remember?